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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Good Things Utah

Julie Baker Bagley directs a team of students at Utah Valley University who do service. Their group is called International Service Abroad. When they heard about the project one of her previous students, Doug Wright, was working on with his friend Dave Williams, they jumped on board.

Doug, Julie and a dozen UVU students, traveled to Guatemala for two weeks in June to support a humanitarian project that will provide low-cost prosthetics to an area devastated by an earthquake in 2009. In support of the humanitarian efforts their team builds unique limbs made from polyvinyl chloride, more commonly known as PVC. The prosthetics can be attached for around 15 percent of the cost of an average prosthetic. The goal is to start self-sustaining clinics that can provide prosthetics for those who are not able to afford them. This humanitarian project is changing the lives of both the volunteers and the recipients.

The focus of 2Ft Prosthetics is to establish, step by step, similar clinics worldwide in underdeveloped countries and the US. The UVU club plans to participate in another 2Ft Prosthetics project in the future, possibly in New Zealand. One of UVU's students will produce a documentary on the trip for his senior project. The documentary will hopefully be ready the first part of November. These students plan and organize humanitarian projects worldwide. They have visited other countries where they have left a lasting impact. The aim is to restore hope and much needed relief.